My journey to adopt from Bulgaria…to Maine!

Flurry of activity

I remember the days immediately following Jude’s court was a mad dash of…well everything.
Adding new child to health insurance.
Prepping Human Resources department for Maternity Leave.
Various preparations of filling in various nurses in on the various functions of my job.
Obtaining referrals for new child.
Scheduling several medical appointments for new child.

This is all going on now.

Only I still have the usual hectic schedule of Jude’s therapies to work around and she also has several specialist appointments of her own that are coming due for follow-up before the end of the year. I held off scheduling those until I had an idea of when we might travel. Now that I have at least a clue, and some of these are the same specialist that Gabriel has to see: BACK-TO-BACK APPOINTMENTS!!! I personally have a love-hate relationship with back-to-back appointments. They typically do go faster than two appointments with unrelated people, but when it is children with special needs like mine the length needed to accomplish everything is definitely overwhelming to everyone in the room.

Add to this the fact that we are looking to step off a plane from Bulgaria and land in THE HOLIDAY SEASON.

I am a horrible shopper. I never do things early. I bemoan, bitch and procrastinate. EXCEPT THIS YEAR. I am one of those annoying idiots that is almost done with my Christmas shopping. I am not proud of this. The only reason I had any notion of doing this was the prospect of waking up from jet lag and realizing that I had 7-10 days until Christmas, 14 million medical appointments, 2 toddlers, and that I was likely outside the value online shopping/shipping window. Otherwise: Hell on Earth.

Oh, did I mention? Somewhere in this mix is a birthday party. Like a I-actually-have-to-put-in-effort birthday party. Whose birthday? Ummm…both. The girls are 1 year and 3 days apart in age. Meaning forevermore there will be one GIANT birthday in late November. Sure I will recognize each day for each girl, But nobody is going to show up for 2 birthday parties for the same family in 3 days. They are gonna share a party. I found a parent that was faced with the same situation. She said it works. All Jude wanted for her birthday was “a Happy Birthday party” so I am following her lead. A Happy Birthday party it will be.

And all of the above is actively being worked on this week in addition to Jude’s preschool, my coursework, me actually working, adoption stuff for Gabriel, post-adoption report finalization for Jude, Jude’s therapies, everyone else in the family getting prepped to go.

And the furnace broke. And got fixed.

Somehow we are still eating, sleeping, and bathing too. I neglected to fold the laundry. We are picking out of the basket. I do have limits.

I still have a crazy to-do list before I go. I am staying up 1-2 hours late each night to accomplish as much as possible.